Thursday, March 22, 2007

Okonomiyaki is not a special thing for me because I am originally from Osaka where Okonomiyaki is very popular. A lot foreign guests are interested in this stuff and actually love it when they try one. But when they see one for the first time soon after we serve it, the bonito flakes at the top look like dancing because of the heat. Most people ask me why they dance????? - I always tell them they don't need to worry about it, they are just bonito flakes and dancing because of the heat. I guess probably they are affraid if the bonito flakes were something still alive!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Japan does not have daylight saving and I'm comfortable with it. Nothing complicated, no confusion. Now U.S.A seemed to make their clock 1 hour earlier on March 11th this year, 3 weeks earlier than before. I'm really not sure how daylight saving works. I hear it was created to save candles at night as people was able to have longer daylight if they made their clock 1 hour earlier when sun came out earlier and set latter in summer. Also people was able to get more sunshine with it. It seems that Japan used to have daylight saving for a while but now we don't. I think it'll be very complicated if Japan has daylight saving again because when countries in the northern hemisphere make their clocks 1 hour earlier, countries in the south hemisphere do the opposite.

When we see what's going on from Japan, Japan is 14 hours forward from New York in summer, 13 hours in winter. 1 hour backward from Sydney in summer ( in Japan), 2 hours in winter ( in Japan ). But if people see this in any countries that have daylight saving, time in the opposite hemisphere might be horrible lol.... Sydney is 14 hours forward from New York in summer ( in the north hemisphere ), 16 hours in winter. Additionally, each and every country that has daylight saving doesn't make their clocks forward/backward at the same time. Every country does that when it's convenient to them. How do they describe the flight schedule for a flight that connects Europe and Australia via U.S.A TODAY!?!?!?!?!?!? lol..... If Japan took daylight saving, I think people have to work by minding the time difference would have hard time for a while until they get used to it.

Monday, March 12, 2007

...in this season but it's already in the second half of March.This is not a big snow which they predicted in weather forcast last night. In my opinion, a big snow is like 50cms in a night.

But ski slopes got more snow!!Just a tiny bit of distance from our place to ski slope but sometimes it makes big difference as to snow. I usually wonder when I need to play my snowblower when we have some snowfalls but this time I collect snow in our parking by a snowdump.

And put them onto a flowerbed.Now I can make some holes for candles to get in. Candles with fire looks so nice at night which I really love. Maybe making holes and stuff is the work for tomorrow, not for today. When you get older, you can't do this and that so much at a time or you'll have problems here and there e.g. sore muscles, be careful :-)

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Connected Osaka and Hamada, Masuda and Taisha in San-in region.This picture below was probably taken in 1976."Daisen" was exactly a long distance express train which kept leaving Osaka at 9:50 for long time. Trains for San-in region were usually in service via Fukuchiyama line e.g. limited express train "Matsukaze" which connected Osaka to Hakata all the way along the San-in main line. Also, limited express "Hamakaze" and express "Tajima" were available via Bantan line. "Daisen" had some cars for Hamada or Masuda, and some others for Taisha. Cars for Taisha were devided from others at Izumoshi station. If I remember correctly there were some other cars which were left at Yonago, Tottori or Toyooka. If I dare say, we could fantasize some trips when we find that many destination signboards in one train. Pay attention, the last diesel car you see now don't have aircondition machine at its ceiling. Didn't know there were still some non aircondition diesel cars for that south regions at that time. 101 series commutor train cars are also visible in this picture.

Friday, March 9, 2007

It keeps going on and on and on but I can not follow all the way to the end. No time for it!!! It's nice to live in a snowy deep mountain to find this kind of nature stuff. By the way, in English they call them above "footprint". But why singler not plural? Wonder if they don't say "feetprints" as the plural form of "foot" is "feet".Am going to ask it to my guests now staying in our place lol....

Bond bases on rubber. Didn't have this kind of bond, so I went to a "home center" (DIY shop) to get one.The guide explanation note says I put this bond both A and B when I want to glue them. And have to wait for 5-10 minutes to get them half dried. Then have to connect them. Errrr I might try to do something else for the 5-10 minutes if I have a lot of things to do but then I am not sure if I remember I have something to connect and have to do that AFTER the 5-10 minuetes BEFORE this bond gets completly dried. But nowadays I think I'm getting older and older as well as my memory, sometimes easily forget anything. Probably I guess I had better be patient to wait for the 5-10 minutes doing nothing else, otherwise I will get some extra work to take the dried bond off of the objects to try it again :(

Found a memory of one of my past trip to Hokkaido. It's a JNR (The forner Japan National Railways ) green car ( 1st class passenger car ) reserved ticket for an express train "Kitakami 3" from Sendai to Aomori. It says I seemed to buy it at Kooriyama station.Now I think it just takes a little bit more than 2 hours from Sendai to Aomori by Shinkansen to Hachinohe then change train there for Aomori. But at that time, it took 4 and half an hours if I remember right even by a limited express train "Hatsukari" from Sendai to Aomori which most people took in that case. But I thought it was not interesting to do that, so I decided to choose something else and took that train that went to Aomori along a detour for Aomori. This ticket says that "Kitakami 3" left Sendai at 14:11. If I remember right, that train reached Aomori around 22:00 by running on the Tohoku main line to Kitakami then took its route on the Kitakami line to Yokote, then all the way to Aomori on the Oou line. After I reached Aomori, I got in a ferry to Hakodate to take an express train "Niseko" to Sapporo. Took trains to reach Obihiro , Kushiro direction through Karikachi summit.

After the Japanese narcissus finished their blooming, some other flowers are displayed in our front. How many flowers below do you know?

The pink one at the upper left : cyclamenIn front of cyclamen : one kind of ivy (I think ) HederaThe yellow flowers left side of hedera : FreesiaThe yellow and dark blue flowers : PrimulaThe thin leaves left side of Primula : CrocusThe yellow flowers at the deep right : Kalanchoe

Freesia smells the strongest of them, but even then it's not stronger than Japanese narcissus.

I hang some "Hoozuki (Japanese lantern)" at the left side of a blackboard. The roots of Hoozuki really widespread in the ground, so you'd better have some in a pot, not in a flowerbed. If you put them in flowerbeds, probably other plants can not grow good.

Zooming up to a pot of hedera. Iveys do survive even if they don't get enough sunshine. For example at the north side of a house, inside of a house. But they don't seem they like cold temperture, their leaves get redder if it's 5C or colder. So I always get them inside of my house when it's getting colder and colder before they get red.

I put rosemaries also inside of the house to avoid snowfall. But as we use them for cooking, they are losing leaves little by little lol..... They like sunshine pretty much, not like ivey. So when it's sunny, I try to put them outside to get sunshine on them. It's not impossible to have some fresh flowers and herbs even in winter in this snowy places if you try.